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In 2014, the ASB Partnership celebrates twenty years of high impact
scientific research on options to combat deforestation while improving
livelihoods in the tropical forest margins. It is a partnership that has
consistently championed the issue of deforestation and has had far reaching
effects and contributed to global debates and initiatives on environment,
particularly on climate change.
Over the years, ASB Partnership has worked with local communities, governments and scientists in finding compromise between livelihood needs, development and environmental conservation

More than 50 institutions through multidisciplinary and long-term
co-location of research in benchmark sites across the humid tropics have published
more than 1000 scientific publications, including articles, books and book
chapters; as well as over 40 signature ASB policy briefs that have become
popular with various audiences and especially policy and decision makers.

“The evolution of ASB can well be compared to the story of the phoenix
bird that rises after earlier incarnations crashed and burned in the sense that
the partnership has had to change and renew focus after challenging afresh old
and existing theories,” says Dr Meine vanNoordwijk, Chief Scientist at the
World Agroforestry Centre who was among pioneers of the ASB Partnership.

During phase I of the partnership, the hypothesis was to stop
deforestation through agricultural intensification, maximizing on yields in
available agricultural land in order to spare forests. With time however it was
realized that this could actually lead to more deforestation as agriculture
became more profitable. Phase II was an effort to explore whether
intensification would work if integrated with appropriate policies, technology
and institutional reforms through a win-win hypothesis. This approach
encountered challenges on implementation particularly across scale from local to
national government. This led to Phase III of incentives hypothesis where
environment and development needs could be met with the right mix of incentives
supported not just by the governments in developing countries but through
global investments such as payments for ecosystem services.

The partnership is currently at Phase IV -sharing-sparing-caring
hypothesis- where emphasis has been on a multifunctional landscape approach to
emission reduction. Through the Reducing Emissions
from All Land Uses project, ASB is among pioneer institutions to provide
evidence on the need for a landscape approach to reducing emissions from
deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), as it overcomes implementation
challenges related to a narrow focus on forests. This has been picked up in
various forums with negotiators at the last United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (UNFCCC COP 19) saying that a
landscape approach is the next best alternative to REDD+. A global forum on
landscapes was also held for the first time at the margins of COP 19.

“The success of the ASB Partnership lies in the diverse, dynamic,
multidisciplinary team of scientists drawn from national and international
research institutes, universities, community organizations, and farmer’s
groups,” says Dr Peter Minang, ASB Partnership Global Coordinator.

The ASB approach provides the right mixes of disciplines to test
various theories and working with communities informs their practicality and
application on the ground.

“Going forward, ASB will continue to work on issues around the
agriculture-forest interface,” says Dr Minang. “Shifting cultivation remains a
huge challenge in the Congo Basin and more attention would thus be given to
that part of the world. Overall, research will focus on promoting
multi-functionality in landscapes along tropical forest margins in the context
of green economic development.”

Over the next 20 years, ASB Partnership hopes to continue reporting
positive impact on lives, livelihoods, forests and ecosystem services.

The ASB Partnership for the Tropical
Forest Margins held its inaugural 20th Anniversary celebration in
New Delhi, India on Thursday, February 13 2014 as a special event during the World
Congress on Agroforestry.

In his opening statement, Prof Tony
SimonA panel of ASB Partners and scientists who have worked with the Partnership over the 20 year period give their reflectionss, the ASB Partnership Chair and Director General at the World Agroforestry
Centre (ICRAF) noted that, “There is no other single partnership agency that
has stayed the cause in working with all of those issues at the agriculture
–forestry interface in the tropical forest margins.”

In attendance at the celebrations were ASB
partners, some who have been working with the partnership since its inception
in 1994 and were part of even earlier discussions leading to its formation. These
included: Dr Dennis Garrity, Senior Board Fellow at ICRAF and former ASB Chair;
Dr Tatiana Sá, former Executive Director, Embrapa and now a senior researcher
with the same institution; Prof Fahmudin Angus of the Indonesian Soil Research
Institute (ISRI); Dr Vu Tan Phuong, the ASB Partnership national facilitator in
Vietnam; Dr Jofel Feliciano, ASB national facilitator in the Philippines,
working with The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural
Resources Research and Development.

Dr Peter Minang, the current ASB Partnership
Global Coordinator indulged them in a panel discussion on their work and
reflections with the partnership over the years.

They acknowledged ASB’s impact over the
years in shaping policies and debates both at national and international
levels, training of farmers and government officials at local level and
producing high impact scientific publications, manuals and other resources that
have widely been used by decision makers. But they also mentioned some of the
challenges and work areas within the Partnership’s mandate that still need to
be tackled. “There still remains a need to explore options for sustainable
agriculture among the poor farmers practicing shifting cultivation in the Congo
basin,” said Dr Dennis Garrity. New Book: Partnership in the tropical forest margins: a 20-year Journey in Search of Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn released at the inaugural ASB 20th anniversary celebrations

The celebrations concluded with a virtual
tour of the ASB benchmark sites in form of a poster session and an art gallery
that illustrated various activities on shifting cultivation as practiced in
Southeast Asia.

Agrobiodiversity refers to the dynamic and complex relations among human societies, cultivated
plants and the environments where they interact, and it is directly
related to food security, nutrition, health, social equity and justice,
environmental sustainability and climate change adaptation.

Brazil’s land reform program that aimed to bring “People without land to land without people” has resulted in over 8,500 settlements covering more than 84 million hectares of forest throughout the country.

At the invitation of the World
Bank, ASB Scientists Peter Minang and Douglas White made a presentation on best
approaches to climate smart agriculture (CSA) at the World Bank headquarters in
Washington D.C in the US.

As
part of ASB Partnership’s REALU
project, a new strategy that provides a model of how consensus among
multi-stakeholders can be achieved including how communities can be part of
decision making and implementation process in finding sustainable solutions to
development has been released.

The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) supports Rio+20’s focus on
sustainable development and hopes the conference will establish a sound
development basis for the rest of the 21st Century by adopting as a
guide, strategies agreed upon at the 1992 United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED), agreements from World Summit on
adopting Sustainable Development (WSSD) an

A recent study by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and the UK's Met Office Hadley Centre shows that if forty percent of the Amazon were to be deforested, the rainforest ecosystem would pass a 'tipping point' that would trigger a feedback loop between fore